


intersections

by fishycorvid



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cold Case - Freeform, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Pining, Pre-Relationship, fancy that, set sometime in season 1/2, soft, unlike most of my fics this one is actually canon compliant!, whoof i just banged out two fics in a day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 11:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14471262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishycorvid/pseuds/fishycorvid
Summary: Amy stays late working a case. Jake brings her home.





	intersections

**Author's Note:**

> whoops, i have tons of prompts but instead decided to write this out impulsively in like thirty minutes
> 
> enjoy

It should just be another night. Unseasonably, unreasonably cold night (it’s mid-October, for the love of God, it should not be below 40 degrees ever), but just another night. 

Regardless, here he is, sitting alone in the precinct with Amy Santiago. 

She’s humming softly as she does her work, hair down and tucked behind one ear, half-mouthing the words she writes (Jake doesn’t think she’s aware of that, of the soft breaking-off of her humming every time she touches her pen to the paper), one hand idly playing with her rubber-band ball, and he watches her eyes go half-closed from loss of sleep. 

Jake isn’t even doing anything, just leaning back in his chair and fiddling with his rubix cube to at least keep up pretenses. He could have left a long while ago. 

(He tries to convince himself it’s because the heat is cut out at his apartment, and half-succeeds; at this point he’ll take what he can get.) 

“Got any cases on you?” he drawls, just to break the semi-silence that he doesn’t know what to do with. 

Amy doesn’t look up, but huffs. “You wish, Peralta. I’m not letting you steal anything from me.” 

Jake wheels around their little desk island, chair squeaking across the linoleum. “Santiago, you and I both know you’ve been working on a cold murder case for days, and I’ve got nothing to do.” 

“Go home, then,” she mutters, scooting away from him. 

“You haven’t slept in forever, you’re the one who should be going home.” 

“I fell asleep here two nights ago, Jake, so I’m actually doing _great,”_ Amy says, all angry braggadocio, finally tearing her eyes away from her work. “A woman is dead, and I--” she yawns, and gives him a furious glare as if daring him to say anything about it. “I gotta solve this one.” 

“You gotta solve every one, Amy,” Jake mumbles, and she crosses her arms at him. “Look,” he says, louder. “You need to sleep. My apartment’s heat isn't working, so we’re going to yours. We’re gonna order take out, and we’re gonna work the case.” 

“We can’t take case files out of the building,” Amy tells him flatly, rubbing uselessly at her face. 

Jake rolls his eyes and grabs her case file. She doesn’t argue, for once, just looks at him heavily. 

“Let’s go,” he says softly. They hold each other’s gazes for a moment, at an impasse.

She sighs, and stumbles slowly to her feet. “Okay,” she whispers, and Jake’s eyes soften at the exhaustion that immediately sweeps over her, sending her leaning against him for support. He swings an arm around her shoulder, and resists the urge to kiss the top of her head. Instead, he leads her to the parking garage.

___________

“Jake, I told you a million times, I can drive myself to my own apartment, I’m not that tired--”

“Amy, I swear to God, don’t argue with me on this, you’re fucking exhausted and you’ve been working a case nonstop for days! Get in the car. I’m driving you,” Jake hisses. 

She stares at him, arms crossed and eyes heavy. “Fine. But I’ll hate every second of it.” 

Jake snorts and leads her to the passenger seat. “I expect nothing less.” 

The second she sits down, she falls asleep. 

He chuckles softly to himself and pulls out of the garage. It’s quiet around here this time of night, and he knows this part of the city like he knows his own hand (or at least, that’s what he’d like to believe; in reality he’s gotten lost in his own precinct a frankly embarrassing amount of times). 

The ringing of a phone, Jake’s phone. He swears quietly and pulls over to the side of the road for a second, the dim chaos of New York City flooding around him. 

“Holt?” 

“Detective Peralta. Did you get her to go home?” 

“Yeah. Took a lot of squabbling, but it worked out.” _I hope the rest of it does, too,_ he thinks, and scrubs a hand over his eyes.

A pause on both ends of the line. 

The captain says, more quietly, “I tried ordering her home last night. I think that’s the only time she’s been insubordinate in my months knowing her. Is she okay?” 

“I think she’ll be fine.” He shoots a warm glance over at the woman snoring softly in the seat next to him, and smiles. 

A soft noise of approval. “Good job.” 

“Thank you, sir. Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight.” 

Jake puts the phone back in his pocket and turns to look at her for a moment. The streetlights cast a soft glow on her face, and, if he listens closely he can hear the quiet hush of her breath, in and out, in and out. 

Amy’s eyes blink open slowly, eyelashes fluttering as she drags herself out of sleep, and Jake’s breath hitches. 

“Was that Holt?” she rasps softly, pulling herself to an upright position. 

Jake’s lips quirk up a little. “Yeah. He was just checking in on you.” 

On a normal day, that would be enough to startle her fully awake. He prepares himself for a bombardment of questions that never come. Instead, she nods softly and closes her eyes for a long moment. 

“Jake. I need help.” 

He unbuckles his seatbelt and scoots closer to her, and, as if unconsciously, she moves to lean her temple against his shoulder. “What’s going on?” Jake murmurs, voice seeming too loud in the relative silence of the car. 

“I knew her. The woman that got murdered. She was a classmate in college. We hit it off, but never really became friends. So I guess I didn’t know her, per se, so there’s no reason for this to hurt as bad as it does; I haven’t contacted her for years but now, out of nowhere, I miss her.” Amy lets out a broken sigh, and moves away an infinitesimal amount. “I don’t understand.” 

“Amy, you knew her. It doesn’t matter how much, investigating the cold case murder of someone like that, it’s too much for anyone. We can’t work it tonight. You’re going to sleep immediately and then you’re going to call me so we can do it together. Why the hell did you take the case?” Jake tries to keep anger out of his voice-- he doesn’t even know why he’s angry. But there’s a tightness in his chest, behind his sternum, and he pulls Amy closer. 

“I don’t know,” she whispers, breath ragged and tired against his chest. “I just don’t know.” 

They sit like that for a long while, pulled over at the side of the road, in the middle of the night, in the middle of New York. His fingers trace soft patterns into her arm, and she doesn’t cry, just curls in closer and keeps her eyes open and watches the traffic pass by. _Everything feels different,_ she thinks, _Wrong. Changed._

He watches her, and breathes, matching his lungs with hers, ignoring the ache of it all. In this way, nothing has changed at all.

___________

Amy falls asleep after an achingly long time, resting exhaustedly against him. Slowly, Jake maneuvers her back into her seat instead of awkwardly perched across the center console, put her seatbelt on for her. As if in a dream, he brushes the hair out of her face, watches the microexpressions flickering across: the slight furrowing of her brows, the nearly unnoticeable scrunch of her nose, the twitch of her lips. And he misses her, misses the absurd distinction between an inch apart and a foot apart. Just misses her near him.

He wants her near him. Always. 

The realization is like a punch to the stomach, and Jake rests his head against the steering wheel. 

“Okay,” he mumbles to himself. “Okay.” 

He doesn’t look at her as he releases the parking brake, doesn’t look at her as he throws his car into the next gear, doesn’t look at her as he speeds just barely over the limit through the streets, doesn’t look at her as he pulls to a stop outside her apartment. 

Looks at her face too long as he carries her up the stairs to her apartment (and only congratulates himself a little bit for being able to support her weight for so long), can’t tear his gaze away as he sets her down in her bed (she’s still wearing her pantsuit from three days ago, and his heart twists for her, her and her insistence on being always organized and never unkempt), freezes when her eyes open for the second time that night. 

“Hey,” she whispers, and he breathes out a long, slow breath. 

“Hey, Ames,” Jake replies softly. 

“I was wondering,” she murmurs, blinking up at him, gaze open and glassy and honest and only a little sad, this time. “I was wondering about…” Amy doesn’t finish the sentence, just tips her head at him and idly, clumsily, sleepily raises her fingers to brush against the side of his face. Jake thinks he might cry. He doesn’t understand why. 

“Rain check,” he breathes out, curling his hand around hers and gently placing it to lie back over her stomach. Distantly, he thinks about the coldness of his apartment, and the warmth of hers.

She doesn’t react except to close her eyes. “Thanks for bringing me home, Jake.” 

“Any time, Amy.” 

There’s a tightness in his chest and it won’t go away. 

Jake tells himself it doesn’t matter, and fools absolutely nobody.

**Author's Note:**

> and then he drove home and tried to forget it happened. but because he's jake, and even though he forgets everything, it didn't work.
> 
> -
> 
> thanks for reading y'all! tell me if you liked it!! 
> 
> find me on tumblr if you want too, @fishycorvid 
> 
> thank u again for reading this little mess <3


End file.
